Bass Drums... To port, or not to port?

[Kelly]

It's a volume issue. No hole the sound centers around the bass drum. Sounds great to the drummer.
Having a hole projects the sound out.
For years I was no hole. That's all I knew. Until I had a band member at a practice comment he couldn't hear my bass drum.
Next practice I had a hole and the difference was night and day. I'm a hole guy now.

[James Fullier III]

It's always been the opposite for me... My band members always commented they could hear/feel the kick more when I had a full head and of course I could hear/feel it WAY more.... Maybe you had muffling in the kick ??

[Scott_M]

I prefer the sound of a full head, but for some reason, most sound guys seem to go into a tizzy when they can’t place a mic into a port hole. So I’ll mostly use ported head to keep everyone’s stress level to a minimum. Makes me consider internal mics so I can have the best of both worlds.

Internal mic (MAY mounted) on the kick is exactly how I took care of this problem. "I can't mic that", "You need a hole in the front head so it can be mic'd", etc all immediately stopped when I told them there was an EV n/d-868 inside the kick and all ready to go.

[Kelly]

It's always been the opposite for me... My band members always commented they could hear/feel the kick more when I had a full head and of course I could hear/feel it WAY more.... Maybe you had muffling in the kick ??

Hey James,
Never any muffling.
I gigged for years with no hole. I never let a sound man tell me what to do

[James Fullier III]

I could never stand bickering with some sound guy before playing a gig so I always had a ported head for that and let them do whatever. It usually sounded good mic'd anyway so I just left it alone.